


if you time it right the thunder will break

by antarcticas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Forbidden Love, Love, Mostly Canon Compliant, Okay very angsty, Star-crossed, Zutara, essentially zutara but in canon-verse in which they both have obligations, slightly angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24892345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: “You always knew what you had to do.”Zutara in canon.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	if you time it right the thunder will break

She imagines a sunrise.

She can look into his eyes and see the rosy spark of daybreak and in turn the distraught falling of night when she feels alive. She fits into him almost abstractly, like an afterthought, but his being is at the forefront of her mind.

“I should leave,” he breathes, and she nudges him in turn as her limbs grow heavy. “I should — you know — I really should —”

Katara can almost see the stars from the window right now. She knows the destiny they have written in for her, a tale about heroes and victories and  _ complacence.  _ “I don’t want to know this,” she snuggles in deeper, trying to force them to rewrite the story. His chest moves up as if he has something to say but it eventually evens back out and she warms herself with his insides. 

The morning will end with whispered words and sorry smiles but she thinks that it is worth it right now.

/

“Sleep with me,” she whispers in his ear as the fire rages around the others. “I mean — I’m comfortable with you. Please?”

It’s almost impossible to see in the darkness but she still shudders as he reaches over and presses his hand to her cheek. “You’re such a terrible influence,” he groans and it makes her lean into his touch. 

“Zuko.”

The way his lips open and curve makes her want to fall apart right there and then and she feels like cursing the sky once again. He traces her jawline, pushing back a strand of hair. “How could I deny you anything,” he says, but she hears what is placed beneath the carefully chosen words. There are lines that they are terrified to cross.

Toph’s laughter sounds across from them and something violent falls apart as he steps back. “Go.”

He nods towards where untamed innocence lies but she sees him walk back to her tent.

/

“We could run away together,” he tries, and — 

_ “You’re the Fire Lord.” _

His hands scramble through his long hair and she looks around the pavilion before reaching out and grasping them. “Tell me, Katara. Tell me and I’d do anything.”

Zuko’s face is almost the same shade as his scar and he looks heartbroken like never before. It’s a face she knows all too well; she sees it in the morning in the mirror. She thinks that it is hilarious how people claim to know them. 

Another cursory glance and her palms are pressed to his chest. She can feel his beating heart, can feel the blood rushing through, stronger than it was when she rebuilt it months ago. Her lifeforce is tied to this movement. “You know what you have to do.”

She faces his chest. She has to because she knows that the beseeching look in his eyes would never leave her. Something which feels like a tear drops down her face from above. “I’m not strong enough,” he wavers.

“Zuko —”

“I — I’m not. I’m just not. I need us.”

It’s a strange connection two people share, more emotional than physical, truly transcendent. “You know,” she balls the fabric into her hands, “you know.”

“This is cursed.”

_ “No,”  _ she exhales. “You have me. You have us. Feel here,” she taps his chest and brings his hand over hers one last time. “I am always with you right here.”

/

It’s hard to grow old apart. She sees him in dreams. She refuses to write letters.

/

Aang’s death isn’t a relief. She loves him. And now she has her children and her home and yet it is different.

She thinks about writing again but then thinks about life and destiny and all that could have been and puts the scroll down. Sometimes at night she sees a comet and sometimes she sees the consequences of disobeying fate.

Kya asks her about love once and she responds without absolutes and in hidden silence. She rubs her mother’s token with a sigh and then she tells the story and she is surprised when she hears an apology. 

She talks about the moon and fate and things that never could have been.

/

“Katara,” says a voice she can barely recognize from across the room. It’s still tinged with a hint of the tone she knows and she looks behind her with her eyes open. Some things don’t change.

“Zuko,” her voice is unsteady.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting. Some part of her had hope but a larger section of her soul told her  _ next time next time next time  _ like a mantra and she’d played along.

Yet her feet establish goals of their own and steadily go towards him — she rests in an all too familiar pose, her head leaning up to face his, hair streaked with white and sly lines across his face. She has seen all of them. She is not prepared for him to take her hand.

And yet he does and closes it over his heart with the shocking smile she still remembers. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

His response is to look into her eyes — she knows they are now creased with the remnants of smiles and that she has changed so much but she still sees a seventeen-year-old boy who ruled the world — and give her that same smirk. “What do the stars tell you now?”

“A story about hope for tomorrow.”

“Ah,” he leans back, helping her with him until they are settled down. “You always knew what you had to do.”

“I still do.”

“You always will,” he retorts, and she laughs in a way that is truly special.

/

She imagines a sunset.

She can still look into his eyes and see forgiveness and pain and everything in between. 

/

Some people crawl up through your spine.

They make a home of your body which you do not always acknowledge; they are integral to life, like water and air, enough that they are vital. They carve up your insides before you even notice.

They have the sun and moon in their eyes — you breathe with them in tandem and your heart thuds and you feel invincible. It is not that hard to take on the world when your inspiration is locked into your heart. Peace is more of a lie than a sacrifice. 

There are sayings about harmony but none about trust; none about how love does not always rule, none about how you can burn yourself if you get too close. None about the stories which end without happily ever afters for everyone. 

Some people crawl up through your spine and stay there. There is no place for them outside your body so you keep them in a box and release them at midnight. They flash and pull you apart and are also eternal levers. Such is this controversy, a story about a person who reflects themselves into you and destroys all that you are.

_ How broken do you want to be? _

**Author's Note:**

> My canon might be a little off but I tried okay :/ I just wanted to get this idea out of my head because it physically pained me to write. But now it's out and I can't elaborate more on it. Yay.
> 
> I remember reading somewhere here about how true love doesn't always have to end up with two people together and I truly believe that's what happened in canon ATLA. There was tension, man. Maybe they didn't get together but they would have worked if not for external reasons that could have been fixed in a different universe. Sometimes loving is letting go.


End file.
